I've searched for 3 months looking for a used kegerator or small fridge I can convert and either someone beats me to craigslist or the one's for sale are junk.
So, I've saved some $$$ and may just buy one. Actually, based on some I've seen (dual faucets) they are only a bit more than what I could do myself and they come with a warranty. With a birthday coming up, the wife thinks I should get serious and get one. Why would I argue with that?
So, for those that bought vs. built their own, what are your brand recommendations and the best place to buy them? I don't need fancy and I don't want one with an airplane engine sound.

I built my own so can't help you with the brand piece. But, if you have a smart phone you can download a craigslist app to crawl craigslist and then alert you when something matches your search criteria. I've gotten several fridges and cornies this way.

I was in the same situation you described so I started looking for new chest freezers at low prices and it can be done. I just bought a Haier 7.0 cu ft chest freezer from the local Costco for $174.99 which I thought was a nice price. I added a collar made of 2x6s and put 3 taps on it, three kegs fit comfortably with the CO2 tank and if I wanted to I could squeeze in a 4th or a smaller 3 gallon keg on the hump. The freezer and materials for collar cost me $200 - $225, getting all the other hardware, kegs, taps and tank is another story and I didn't really track that expense probably more than SWMBO wants to know.

a single sanke kegerator from costco is $400 w/o perlicks, and throw in another $50-$100 to bring up to homebrewing standards (2 corny kegs). Or go to CL and get a used fridge and get the parts to have 4 cornys on tap... ~$300.